


Written in the Stars

by OrpheusUnderneath



Series: KogKag Month 2020 [1]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: F/M, Festivals, Tanabata, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25108870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrpheusUnderneath/pseuds/OrpheusUnderneath
Summary: KogKag Month, Week 1: Tanabata/FestivalKouga's spent the last 500 years mourning Kagome.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/Kouga
Series: KogKag Month 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818538
Comments: 25
Kudos: 111
Collections: Sparks Fly in July





	Written in the Stars

"C'mon Kouga! It's been decades since you've been to any festivals with us! It's so nostalgic with all the kimono and traditions. Just enjoy yourself for once!" Ginta wheedled as Hakkaku dragged his alpha across the street to the Tanabata festival. 

Kouga sighed as he nodded and his betas high-fived in celebration. He supposed he could let loose for one night. It wasn't often that he had time to himself anymore, with the pack constantly expanding and needing help in the modern era.

They passed brightly festooned stalls selling gyoza and mochi, waving tails of koi fish kites fluttering past in the crowd. 

The boys bought a round of Kirin cans and sipped them as they ordered some yakidango skewers at the next stall over. The sizzling smell of the chicken dumplings made his mouth water even over the scents of the crowd and pollution, but something else was making his nose twitch…

There, the smell of plum and vanilla. He’d smelled that lotion before, but where? Kouga looked through the crowd, confused and wary. Maybe he’d imagined it?

A flash of red and white, he spotted a girl in priestess robes. No, a woman. But just as he was going to get up and investigate, Ginta came over with their yakidango order and he lost sight of her. 

It was for the best really. He couldn't afford another century like the one after she had disappeared. The absolute heartbreak of Kagome going missing, it had nearly shattered him, if he was being honest. 

Shaking his head, he looked back over to the guys. He needed to stop chasing ghosts. It was just like that time a few decades ago, when he’d been at that shrine… He’d been so sure it was Kagome. She’d had the same smile, the same twinkling eyes, she’d even had a hint of priestess powers just under the surface…

But her name had been Hana.

In fact, that shrine was just down the block from here, it was even part of the festivities just like the rest of the street. Maybe he’d just smelled that woman again. Maybe Kagome’s reincarnation?

But he needed to move on. Plenty of widowed youkai did. It’d been 500 years, and she was gone. The gods just loved playing tricks on him, that was all it was.

He let Hakkaku take his hand and lead him over to a booth selling men’s kimono to window shop. It’d been years since he’d had formal wear that wasn’t a tux or khakis, but even the guys were surprised by how good the navy, silver, and black set brought out his eyes. 

Still, there was that smell again. Taunting him with "what ifs" from half a millennia ago, torturing him with that oh so pleasant aroma that was ingrained into his very soul as 'Kagome's scent.' He tried to block it out as he stared into the small mirror in the pop-up changing room, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

But then he heard her giggle. 

And like he was 200 again he rushed outside, thrusting out the fee for the kimono to the affronted shopkeep on the way out. 

He turned around, frantically searching for his lost love in the masses, looking for a scrap of red, a slip of green or white. The pain of the mating mark on his neck burned sharply, pulsing in time to his aching heart. 

She was already gone. 

The scent of hundreds of humans blended together, mingling with the sharp tang of rain about to pour and the overwhelming grease of fried Tanabata delicacies. 

He felt more than heard Ginta run out and Hakkaku call his name. He saw them share a worried look as he ran a hand through his shaggy bangs, messing up the ponytail he'd kept through all these years. Kouga had cut it once or twice, experimented with different styles, but he just didn't feel like himself without the ponytail.

But then, he didn’t really feel all that himself tonight anyways.

Ginta and Hakkaku led him away as he deflated, and they tried to get him back in the festival spirit, but all he could think of was how he must be losing it… How he was so desperate to hear her laughter that he heard echoes of it around every corner. It was common knowledge that widowed mates often went mad with grief, but hadn’t it been long enough? Hadn’t he suffered enough?

“Boss… you’re not gonna believe this.” Ginta was looking down at the flyer in his hand incredulously. “They’re putting on a play over at the Sunset Shrine in a few minutes. It’s called ‘The Ookami and the Miko’… I think we need to check this out.”

While he didn’t really feel like going, it was an odd coincidence. Maybe someone had recorded it somewhere along the line? 

They sat in the back row just in time, and listened as an old man in priest’s robes narrated the beginning of the story they knew so well. A tale of two priestesses, one dead and one alive... two hanyous, one good and one evil… and a lone ookami prince. 

As soon as a spotlight was aimed on the Goshinboku, Kouga held his breath in shock. The sight of a young teen in a remarkably accurate Inuyasha costume leaning against the old God Tree captivated the three ookami, but it was when an older woman dressed as Naraku came onstage that they looked at each other warily. 

This was eerily close to the true story they’d lived. Surely no ancient scrolls could capture this much detail, right?

They watched as the hanyou was betrayed, sealed away, and the first priestess died. And then a familiar aura seemed to brush up against the three men as a woman walked across the makeshift stage. 

She was wearing miko’s robes instead of white and green. Her hair was longer, curlier. The body he’d once held against his own seemed lovelier with age, as though she’d grown into her own. 

His mind told him it was impossible, but his heart told him it was Kagome. 

He watched avidly despite his betas trying their damnedest to get his attention. But he wasn’t letting her out of his sight. Not now, not again. 

God, he’d missed the curve of her lips, the angles of her cheekbones. She was the most beautiful vision he’d ever had in his life. He didn’t care if it was all a fever dream… he just wanted to bask in it. Drown in it so that when the bubble burst and he was left in his empty house tomorrow morning he’d have more than distant memories to comfort him. More than just his pillow to wake up next to. 

But this skit was a love story, and soon enough a scrawny teenage boy wearing a parody of his furs came to “rescue” the miko, stole her away, capture her heart… It was the story of his mating, sanitized to be appropriate for all ages, ending with the lovers torn apart just as they’d found each other. It was tragic. 

Kouga felt a drop of rain land on his hand… except it wasn’t raining, not yet. 

He was… crying? 

The crowd around him cheered and all he could do was silently sob as he stared at the woman in priestess robes. It was impossible. She couldn't be alive. And yet there she was, as if nothing had happened. Like it hadn't been 500 years since she'd disappeared.

Like she belonged here. 

His vision swam as the players bowed and went their separate ways, and he jumped to his feet to follow.

He found her by the God Tree, neatly writing on a slip of Tanabata wishing paper. His soft whisper of "Kagome" made her form go still. The pen fell from her hands as she turned, and he could hear the sharp inhale as she registered who he was. 

Time stood still as they stared into each others' eyes, as he drank in the sight of the woman he'd been mourning for half a millennia. 

But he needed to be sure. Needed the confirmation that it really was his Kagome and not some reincarnation. He reached down to pull aside the white collar of her white hakui slowly, afraid she might vanish at any moment. Terrified that her neck would be bare of his mark and that it was all a cruel trick.

He let out a sob that sounded like her name as he saw the familiar scarred indentions of his teeth.

One droplet, then two dripped down on them as the rain he'd known was coming started to fall. But he couldn't seem to care that his new kimono got soaked through. He'd pay for a hundred new kimono if it meant he'd have his mate back again. All he wanted to do was continue staring into her hopeful eyes as she brought a hand up to caress his jawline.

"It really is you" he whispered to her when he pulled her into a kiss. He didn't care how the rain poured down over their faces, didn't think about the biting wind.

He just pulled her closer. Crushed her small frame against the Goshinboku and kissed her savagely until neither of them could breathe. 

A small white paper fluttered to the ground and landed in a puddle, soaking through a half written note asking for the same wish she'd written every year. 

"Please be alive."


End file.
